Environmental Audit Committee

9 September 2003 LEARNING THE SUSTAINABILITY LESSON

9 September 2003 LEARNING THE SUSTAINABILITY LESSON

Official Launch of EAC Education Report

On Monday 15 September the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) will be officially launching its report on education for sustainable development (ESD) - Learning the Sustainability Lesson (
HC 472). This report was published on 31 July to feed in to Charles Clarke's summer consideration of the latest draft of his Department's action plan for sustainable development. The Committee is keen to stimulate discussion on its report (a summary of recommendations and conclusions is attached) now that everyone is "back to school" and in advance of the DfES unveiling the latest thinking on its action plan.

The report will be launched by the EAC's Chairman Mr Peter Ainsworth MP and Joan Walley MP (who chaired the ESD inquiry), accompanied by other members of the Committee. The launch will take place as part of the Council for Environmental Education's Policy Forum event - Strategic approaches to ESD in the schools sector. This event will round up the latest developments in ESD policy and Ofsted will be presenting the results of its research into the benefits of education for sustainable development in schools.

2. The term ESD is now commonly used to describe the learning needed to maintain and improve our quality of life and the quality of life for generations to come. The Government Sustainable Development Education Panel devised seven key concepts which sum up ESD (see paragraph 5)

- Interdependence - of society, economy and the natural environment, from local to global

- Citizenship and stewardship

- Needs and rights of future generations

- Diversity (cultural, social, economic and biological)

- Quality of life, equity and justice

- Sustainable change (development and carrying capacity)

- Uncertainty and precaution in action

3.The Committee's inquiry was timed to coincide with a great deal of activity on education for sustainable development (ESD). The Government's Sustainable Development Education Panel was wound up in March 2003 and presented Ministers with a draft strategy for ESD; the DfES is now currently developing an action plan for sustainable development which will include ESD; DEFRA is developing a new communications strategy for sustainable development and the UN General Assembly has designated 2005-15 as the UN International Decade for ESD.

Key Recommendations and Conclusions of the Report

a) Learning is a key driver for sustainable change. However, the UK Strategy for Sustainable Development does not set out a clear vision of the contribution which learning can make to achieving the Government's sustainable development goals. We recommend that the Government rectifies this omission during the forthcoming review of the strategy. (Paragraph 15)

b) We welcome the Secretary of State for Education and Skills' confirmation that the DfES is the lead department for delivering and promoting ESD. However, this is an area where the Department has failed to demonstrate any clear vision or strategic thinking. We have been struck by how much has been achieved, despite this policy vacuum, by a range of committed organisations and individual 'champions', acting on their own initiative, across the spectrum of lifelong learning. (Paragraph 33)

c) ESD would now benefit from an overall strategic framework which puts it firmly within the core education agenda, provides direction and impetus to existing initiatives, identifies and builds upon existing good practice, and prevents any unnecessary duplication of effort and resources. (Paragraph 34). DfES will also need to consider the implications of the withdrawal of the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme for those NGOs on which it might rely to effect change (Para 50).

d) We support the development of a stand alone strategy for ESD which builds upon the draft presented by the SDEP to Ministers, and which is subject to public consultation. We are concerned that the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has chosen to incorporate the Panel's ESD strategy into one action plan for sustainable development which sets out measures for the delivery of objectives relating to both environmental management and ESD policy. We are also astonished that DfES has the audacity to offer less than two weeks for comment on this plan. (Paragraph 40).

e) We are disappointed at the dismal response shown by the Government and the majority of Further and Higher Education institutions to the Toyne Report and its review. (Paragraph 111)

f) We welcome the commitment, in the recent Skills White Paper, to make sustainable development a priority theme across the Skills for Business Network in relation to its work on generic and cross-sector skills. However, we are disappointed that the Government chose to present its future skills policy so visibly and exclusively within the narrow context of economic competitiveness rather than against the wider backdrop of sustainable development. (Paragraph 175)

g) DEFRA's two major awareness raising campaigns relating to sustainability to date have been less than half-hearted and ill-focussed. We believe that the funding of any further large-scale, general awareness campaigns would not provide value for money. (Paragraph 136)

Formal education

We recommend that:

- the DfES develops a National School Standard for ESD akin to that used for Healthy Schools. (Paragraph 62)

- DfES evaluates the opportunities for integrating ESD more effectively and explicitly into the existing framework of Citizenship teaching. (Paragraph 76)

- The Secretary of State for Education and Skills requests Ofsted to include ESD in its inspection framework, encompassing ESD both in the curriculum and the learning environment. (Paragraph 83)

- DfES and the Higher Education Funding Councils consider how they can best support and promote ESD in Higher Education Institutions both through strategic guidance and changes to funding criteria. (Paragraph 112)

Informal Public Education

We recommend that the Government funds:

- and develops a coherent, long-term, targeted approach to promoting sustainable development which focuses on specific, priority issues such as waste and energy use. (Paragraph 136)

- the expansion of Global Action Plan's EcoTeams programme to operate on a trial basis across diverse communities, with a full evaluation of the resulting costs and benefits both in qualitative and quantitative terms. This programme is successfully promoting sustainable action at a household level. (Paragraph 163)

Monitoring and Evaluating Progress

ESD is not being systematically monitored or evaluated across the learning spectrum and there is a clear absence of sufficient baseline data from which to measure progress.

We recommend that:

- The DfES commissions research into effective indicators for ESD to support the monitoring and evaluation of its proposed sustainable development action plan. The forthcoming review of the UK Strategy for Sustainable Development, and its associated indicators, provides an opportunity to revise current indicators. (Paragraph 195)

- The Economic and Social Research Council investigates the viability of funding new basic and applied research to support the design, implementation and evaluation of formal and informal ESD on the scale of the Environmental Change Programme which ran from 1991-2000 and remains the largest social science programme ever run in the UK. (Paragraph 204)